Part II:
My Taiko Extreme arrived a little over a year ago. I compared it to my DIY server, which was already sold, and it was better of course (although my DIY server held up surprisingly well). The Extreme got a lot better in the next 3-4 months. At that time, I already had the analog rig listed in the first paragraph in Part I of this post. So how did my digital rig compare to the analog? They were on par, but I still preferred my top 10 reference vinyl records over my top 10 reference digital files. So, I would say that my vinyl was still better.
I bought a Studer A810 reel to reel tape deck, fully refurbished by Soren Wittrup (our local Chicago expert). And I got some of the best recorded tapes, such as those released by Analogue Productions and others. Those were so much better than my top 10 reference vinyl recordings... it wasn't not even close. Of course, I got to hear some not so good recorded tapes too, and I did not care about these. But the best tapes (usually transferred from a master tape backup) were phenomenal. How did those recordings sound on my Extreme? Awful!
This experience made me realize something very important. How much money do we spend to extract the best out of a digital recording? $30K on the Extreme, $30K-$100K on a DAC, $10K+ on USB cables and power cords, etc. And how were those masterpiece recordings transferred from tape to digital? On some crappy old school Analog to digital convertor that does not even have a proper linear power supply.
Disconnect the Extreme from the DAC, connect your laptop, and play your reference tracks from YouTube. You will get much better sound compared to what these old analog to digital converters did back in the day. So, they really screwed up the conversion from analog to digital. We really need a state-of-the-art analog to digital convertor and to re-digitalize all these excellent recordings.
But that’s not the end of my story. With my top vinyl records sounding better than my digital and my top tapes sounding better than my best vinyl, some very interesting things happened in the past 6 months. It’s hard to track down the exact time or formula but things turned 180 degrees for me. Here is list of some things I've done in no particular order:
1. I got new speakers that are very revealing (large Cessaro horns).
2. A lot more work was done on my room acoustics and power.
3. Taiko’s advancements took place - mainly all the XDMS improvements plus the switch/NIC.
4. Added some QSA / QSA Lanedri cable and components (mainly prototypes I have been sent to try) - I’ll post more about that one day.
5. Made some major modification to my line stage and DAC.
I can’t tell the exact tipping point but now my digital sounds so much better than analog. It’s not even comparable. As good as these Analogue Production tapes sounded, I can hear the not so good electronics in the Studer. Yes, I considered buying the Doshi headamp, but not sure I want to spend so much money for the 10 albums on tape I really like. Vinyl does not have the transparency and the engagement levels that I get from playing Qobuz tracks (especially with the last XDMS backend update). Seriously, I haven’t touched my analog rig (since it was sitting on the throne) but now it sounds broken compared to my digital. Every time I listen to my top 10 vinyl records, I am thinking: “Really? That’s what I liked so much for all these years? It’s not bad but they sound nothing like good digital recordings”. Even tracks from Qobuz sound better than my analog. But I think I already said that
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You may wonder how about those analog recordings from the 60’s that had crappy digital transfers? Those still sound better on analog (because the digital transfer is so badly screwed up) but they lack the transparency and the bass I get from good digital tracks.
In the past four months, I’ve only played analog when friends came over and asked me to. Remember the friend with the big horns and the Bada CD player I mentioned? He is the last audiophile on the planet you will see going to digital. He is genuinely against digital. During his last visit, he said my digital sounded better and he asked me to play digital for the rest of the listening session. You can’t even imagine how big of a deal that is. I also had my friend JR from Wally Tools here a couple of weeks ago, and he said that he understands why I prefer digital and if he was listening to my system, he would be listening to digital too. He thought something was wrong with my analog. And yes, that's true - it sounds broken next to my digital
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Here is the thing, though. I’ve tweaked my system for digital playback. And I know what I need to do to raise the bar on my analog again. I can’t explain how, because it will take me the entire day to put my thoughts together. But I am confident I know how I can make my analog much more enjoyable again and will do that in the coming months. But I doubt it will surpass my digital ever again.
Let me finish my long post by quoting myself: “When I started building my own servers I had one goal only - to make my digital sound as good as my analog” - this goal was overachieved by a big margin!
Enjoy your weekend!
www.highdeftapetransfers.ca
